LautLots

LautLots an Acoustic Guide through the German Railway Station, Basel
Interactive Soundwalk, 2012/2013

A Research-Project of the university of applied science FHNW (University of Music, Institute for Research in Art and Design and the Institute of Mobile and Distributed Systems) in collaboration with Atelier Hauert-Reichmuth

“LautLots, an acoustic guide through the German Railway Station, Basel” is the artistic result of the researchproject “Large Scale Indoor Tracking in transitory Rooms”. This Researchproject focused on the different forms of indoor tracking methods in different rooms inside a building.

So one aim of the artistic concept was to create challenging technical “problems”. At the same time the project had to serve as “cutting point” for the results of the several institutes and we artists were as well the directors which formed out of this single pieces an “ensemble” – by trying to connect technical purposes with aesthetical, musical or literary questions.
With other words (Kants words): “What means, to orient one’s self in thinking?“

All this led to the interactive soundwalk “Lautlots”.
5 participants went on a acoustic expedition through the railwaystation wearing a headphone with a topmounted smartphone, (in fact a small computer- and audiosystem with inbuild sensors and wlan_ability.)
The journey started in a bar, (with individual trips in the room itself) led through public space and directed the group even in private zones of the german railwaystation (on swiss ground): in a 150 m hallway and in the anteroom to the german consulate. The final destiation: a garden and from there the participiciants went back into the bar, startingpoint and final destination in one.
But our guide “Lautlots” was not only a guide through this buiding with its very special rooms – he was as well a guide through a modular audio play. Lautlots seduced the partipiciants to orientation- and navigationexperiments, opened up fictitious rooms, nonexisting zones which could be heard by walking only. Finally he led everybody – single and personally – into paradise, a place beyond every border, a venue without space and time.

“The interactive soundwalk Lautlots provide insights into the variously shaped topography of interior rooms – an experience which remain barred to long distance travelers. Its an audio play, an interaktive guidesystem and a literary voyage around a room in one!”